Action Movie Reviews

I spent last night trying to find movie reviews for 'Captain America - The Winter Soldier' that contained reviews on the camerawork and editing of the film. This technique of research proved to be quite difficult as movie reviews are mainly based upon the film as a whole and put all the main focus on the story of the film and how it all worked well together. For me as an editor/cameraman these movie reviews proved to be quite useless for my chosen area of research which unfortunately put me one step behind on my research as there was not any content in the review that I could use in this post, however because of this I thought I should do my own movie review on 'Captain America - The Winter Soldier' putting the main focus solely on camerawork and editing for this film.

Before I start on my own review of 'Captain America' here is the movie review I found of the film on the Independent website.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/captain-america-the-winter-soldier-film-review-9207486.html

My Review:

Warning Spoilers!!!

Overall I thought 'Captain America - The Winter Soldier' was a great film. Throughout it I was constantly on the edge of my seat never knowing what was going to happen. Some people may think it is quite predictable but I generally thought that you could not predict any part of the film what so ever. Wanting to become an editor myself I would not change any bit of this film I think Jeffrey Ford done such a great job on the editing, for example not releasing the identity of The Winter Soldier until close to the end which then helps build the question of who is the Winter Soldier? and how will Captain America bring himself to defeat him who he finds out to be his childhood friend James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes. When it comes to the big action sequences the editing is really invisible to the point where you don't notice when the cuts happen because you are so tied into what is going to happen next. I think because you don't notice the cuts that much throughout the action sequences it makes you be able to loose yourself within the film rather than having to sit and concentrate on what is going on, such as a film like Inception, that sort of a film you have to really sit and think about what is happening.

When it comes to the cinematography I think that Trent Opaloch has visualised this film with great detail as none of the shots are boring for example in the first opening rescue scene there is a shot where the camera glides over the top of the boat whilst you see Captain America as a small dot running about the ship. I love this shot as it shows he is the only person from his team on the ship and how he has the ability to take over the ship on his own. Throughout the whole film there is many amazing visuals although some would have been shot on a green screen the camera techniques used work really well for the film.

Overall the whole technical side of things such as editing and cinematography completely make this film, besides the great story line for this sequel. It is a must see film and I just hope that in future films Marvel keep up the excellent work.

Here are some of the clips I found on youtube some of which relate to what I have talked about and some which just show small clips from my review.

Opening Scene

Featurette - The story of the Winter Soldier

Captain America - The Winter Soldier (trailer)

From doing this type of research (looking into film reviews from news papers and film magazines) I have learnt that it will not be easy to find a review solely on technical things. If I were to do some research like this again I would definitely use YouTube as on there you have videos from the Director/Editor/Cameraman. These help a lot more for me being more technical as I can relate to what they are saying and get more knowledge from their personal experience. Overall I would definitely recommend the method of movie reviews from newspapers if you are researching more into film stories etc. However if you are researching into more technical side of things I would use the preferred method of YouTube videos from the film makers and the film itself.